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An onboard passenger said the pilot announced at 6pm that the plane was circling due to traffic, but when it started to run out of fuel, it was diverted to Manchester in New Hampshire, where it landed around 7pm according to NBC News .

Following refuelling, the crew were "out of hours" the pilot said, and there were no customs officers to process the arriving passengers, so they sat on the plane for two hours.

When they were permitted to leave, they walked through heavy snow to reach customs as alternative agents had been brought in.

Windy conditions: The plane was sent to Boston the morning after it should have arrived in New York (Image: Getty)

"It was snowing and cold, and everybody was tired and cranky after waiting on the plane for two hours," passenger Corie Buonanno of Tarrytown, told NBC 4 New York.

After being put up in hotels, the plane took off in the morning, but windy conditions caused another diversion, this time to Boston.

Another passenger, Maribel Reyes of East Meadow, said: ""There were a lot of people getting sick, several people needed oxygen. I never experienced turbulence like that.

"The pilot described it as a blender."

Back in the skies, the Delta flight eventually landed at JFK more than a day late.